Jul 15 2010
Counterfeits Taking Over the World!
Well maybe that’s being a little dramatic, but since I’ve been at the ITA, I’ve learned that in many of the world’s countries counterfeit drugs has been a problem and that this problem is increasing as I write this blog post.
The first step here is to define what a counterfeit medicine is, but that has proven to be difficult seeing as everyone has a different definition. The World Health Organization has defined “counterfeit medicines” as “medicines that are deliberately and fraudulently mislabeled with respect to identity and/or source.” (http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs275/en/) However defining this term is difficult because both branded and generic medicines are being counterfeited. Furthermore, counterfeit medicines may include “products with correct ingredients or with wrong ingredients, without active ingredients, with insufficient or too much active ingredients, or even with fake packaging.” Another problem is that counterfeiters don’t just use one method of counterfeiting; their methods change day to day to avoid detection.
Right now, counterfeiting medicines is greatest in regions where regulatory and enforcement systems for medicines are weakest such as in many African countries, in some Asian and Latin America countries. In these countries, many people can’t afford to buy the real medicines so they will seek out the cheaper ones. This problem with counterfeiting drugs needs to be dealt with because the use of counterfeit drugs can cause treatment failure and can lead to death.
There have been some steps taken to combat this counterfeiting problem. There are some companies around the world are coming up with inventive ways to help with this problem. For example, there is a company called Sproxil that has come up with the idea of using scratch off tags to combat counterfeit medicines in Nigeria. These tags will be attached to genuine medicines and once someone scratches it off, they will be given a number they can text to see if the medicine they are about to buy is genuine or counterfeit. (http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2010/06/04/counterfeit-medicine-fighter-sproxil-declared-winner-at-ibm-smartcamp-event-spotlighting-technology-that-improves-the-physical-world/ )
While most people think of counterfeit money or knock off purses, but now that counterfeit drugs are saturating the drug market, the global health arena must take notice and take action.